Iceland and the Czech Republic met yesterday for a friendly match, which the Czechs won 2-1 over Thor’s Mighty World Cup-Bound Soccer Raiders. The current international break is replete with friendlies scattered around the world, and as such, major clubs have sent their scouts to go check them out. Future 2017-18 Premier League runners-up Manchester United attempted to send a scout of their own to see whether studs like Ondrej Celustka or Hjörtur Hermannsson could play.
However, he was off by three time zones, as the game took place in Doha, Qatar. Icelandic paper Fótbolti reported that a Danish scout from United (who appears to be Tommy Møller Nielsen) emailed the Icelandic FA, got his tickets to the game, and then exasperatedly messaged them again yesterday when he showed up to an empty stadium in Reykjavik. They politely told him that he’d played himself.
Earlier this year, Nielsen said, “Scouting consists equally of seeing that there is nothing,” and at least he got to see nothing on his cool-ass trip to Iceland, which he can now brag about.